Awake

The cracks were already forming, of course. I simply hadn’t acknowledged them. The event which finally woke me wasn’t terribly difficult or dramatic. It was small, and a little petty, and strangely enough had nothing to do with the on-going emotional abuse, but it blew open every door I kept quite securely shut. I was gutted, wondering what the hell I was doing in a place where there was no space for me as myself – only me as an ideal someone else dreamed up.

Look if you really want to wake up to yourself, I highly encourage seeing a good therapist. Ask around. Get recommendations. You don’t have to be sick or a danger to yourself and others to benefit from conversations about reality, even shitty reality. Maybe you just need someone whose only objective in the relationship is for you to be whole and to thrive as your best self. That’s what I found in therapy.

My therapist shook me up, woke me up and ended each session by encouraging the hell out of me, every other week for a year. She gave me permission to walk a path away from strict fundamentalist doctrine and ideology. She helped me see the reality of a relationship that would never be anything but toxic without radical change. She identified emotional and spiritual abuse. She even warned me there would be a cost to choose a different path. I wasn’t unaware when I walked away, but I finally understood my soul was more important than the dance.

During this time, I explored other narratives and other experiences. I am fascinated by sacred spaces. I explored religion and philosophy, reveling in the similar narrative flow from every one of them: growth making us kinder, gentler, wiser, more open and loving, always moving closer to a Divine Source. I moved further away from evangelicalism as I saw my native faith narrative narrow, becoming anti-people groups, excluding wide swaths of humanity as different, sexually, ethnically, ideologically, and therefore wrong.

Of course, being wrong in the evangelical construct means going to hell. We were, still are, condemning entire groups of beautiful, hurting people to the depths of hell-a construct I no longer believe in- and we felt right and morally superior about doing so.

You can see why I often feel to sick to talk about my experience.

The most discouraging aspect of American Evangelicalism is how little room there is for diversity. Sure, they welcome people of color, but they will demand the same fidelity of diverse humanity as they do of those born to the fold: mold to accepted patterns, fit the standard template, disassociate from unsanctioned ideas and activities. The church follows a white man’s cis-gender narrative. Diverse voices don’t get seats at the important tables. Not in my experience.

My experience with church was one of a constant echo chamber where the same platitudes and polished answers were repeated over and over again with little thought to why or who said them so long as the message is consistent. Add some lights and high volume music filling every empty space, men running on and off stage in varying degrees of excitement or generated reverence and there is very little room for individual thought or contemplation. Race to the altar call, herd the chosen out and bring in the next group. Repeat. Service after service, week after week after week after year.

Now we’re all good Christians.

I don’t think I’m better than people who follow this tradition and find God, I only know I don’t find Her there. I won’t pretend that manufactured emotion equals a spiritual experience. I’m awake to the fact that by evangelical standards, I may not even be a Christian anymore. It’s a jarring realization, an identity shift of astounding proportions.

Modern evangelical theology with its certainty and literalism is not something which sustains me any longer. I’m exhausted of hearing growth and freedom promoted, but dependence and control being practiced. This has been my experience with the church for nearly twenty years. I know it isn’t everyone’s experience and for this, I am grateful for you. We all need communities where our essential selves are welcomed and encouraged. I have not found that in the evangelical church.

I’m awake to the fact that I’m never going find it there. While I may be questioning whether or not I’m still even a Christian, evangelical is a label I know can never wear again. The radical polarization of fundamentalism is something which makes me viscerally ill. This illness manifested itself in panic attacks and anxiety, physical illness and borderline PTSD. My body was trying to wake me up to the damage my psyche, my soul, experienced on a weekly, often daily basis.

If you’re wondering why we stayed, why we kept pushing, why we didn’t cut and run-I wonder that too sometimes. For a while, I stayed because my husband and I were traveling the same path at different speeds, and he wasn’t ready to go as soon as I was. I tried to protect him ( from what? From me? From heresy? from being forced to make a choice? ) by not being honest about how deeply I was affected.

Let me interrupt for a moment and be very clear, my husband only ever held sacred space for me to grow into myself. He always has. He also takes very seriously his financial responsibility to his family and his deep love for the church, a love I have never experienced the way he does. I firmly believe his willingness to allow me that space is what ultimately led to the final breaking point. When push came to shove, he was only ever and always in my corner.

I stayed because this is where my children’s lives are rooted now, and I wasn’t willing to turn their lives over again, even at great cost to myself. We stayed because we had and have real relationships with real people who do love us for our real selves, and those relationships sustained us.

We stayed for the money. We stayed because somehow the unknown was still more frightening than our reality. We stayed because we make choices, sometimes wisely, sometimes not. It took to the end of the chapter to fully know if our choices were wise. We make choices, and we live with them, or we make changes and live with them instead. Over and over again.

Near the end, as we signed more silence contracts and kept submitting resumes in every direction I said, “They will have to fire you. I’m not walking away from here for nothing.” This was my choice. I knew the cost, calculated the risks and walked forward. We needed more time and a clear path out of the hell we were in. We got it at last, but not before I knew without a shred of doubt that professional church was a role I never want to be associated with in any way ever again. Period. Also, exclamation mark. The Universe closed the door, locked it, shoved me out of the building, burned it, crushed it and brought in a tornado to carry away the debris.

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Author: Dana Portwood

I'm a writer, reader, library lover, grower of feminists, leaver of church but friend of Jesus. Inclusive minded, married to my best friend. Sometimes afraid of my own voice, but using it anyway.
View all posts by Dana Portwood

3 thoughts on “Awake”

Love love love you.
I think the only reason I am staying in our church is our new minister. He thanked me for warning him that Andrew doesn’t like being called Andy, He wasn’t afraid to make a Harry Potter reference in church, and he completely understands us feeling abandoned by God with Michael’s situation and that prayer for full healing is not necessarily what we want right now, but that there will be other things we need prayer for in the midst of it all.